


Ghosts!

by captainkippen



Series: JATP Appreciation Week 2020 [7]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Confessions, Discovery, Gen, poor victoria, the boys have no sense of subtlety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27443989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainkippen/pseuds/captainkippen
Summary: Day 7: Write something set in canon-verse.Ray finds out the truth.Written forJulie and the Phantoms Appreciation Week 2020.
Relationships: Julie Molina & Ray Molina
Series: JATP Appreciation Week 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993720
Comments: 14
Kudos: 298
Collections: JATP Appreciation Week





	Ghosts!

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [captainkippen](https://captainkippen.tumblr.com/).

“Okay, let’s go through this one more time...”

Ray Molina liked to think of himself as a reasonable man. The last year and a half had been difficult, but not impossible in the way that he had dreaded it would be, and by some miracle, he had managed to fight through the pain and grief of suddenly becoming a single father to come out stronger for it.

He had limits, though, and he was sure this was one of them.

“You guys are dead,” he said, matter-of-factly with his hands pressed together.

“Yes.”

“And you came back as ghosts.”

“Right again.”

“And now you’re… living in my garage and playing in a band with my fifteen-year-old daughter.”

The three boys were spread out across their instruments, idly playing a low volume tune while Julie quietly sang along from the other end of the couch. Apparently, this was the only way they could be seen by anybody but her. Ray was half a second away from driving himself to the hospital just thinking about it.

“If it helps we don’t use any of the hot water,” Reggie piped up. “And we put the milk back in the fridge when you forget it.”

Great.

It had been an accident, finding out the truth, and Ray had yet to determine whether he’d rather have stayed in the dark or not. They’d been having a busy day at work – prepping to shoot two weddings on the same day and meetings with both of the brides beforehand – so when he’d picked up his phone to find three missed calls from Victoria blinking across the screen he’d panicked just a little.

_“Ray, you need to get home right now. Right. Now. Okay? There’s something weird going on in the garage–”_

All the voicemails had been of a similar theme, her voice growing higher and more anxious with each one, so he had handed his duties over to his assistants and hopped in the car to run back home. Victoria had been waiting for him in the yard, arms crossed and adamant not to return to the garage, or anywhere in the house for that matter, yammering on about moving sheets and ghosts and rattling. 

“Go wait in the car and calm down,” he suggested, not unkindly. 

Carlos’ ghost hunting must be getting to her, he thought. Victoria was already a superstitious woman at best. She couldn’t be blamed for getting a little freaked out. Hell, sometimes when he was alone in the living room, half-asleep on the couch, he could swear he saw things move out of the corner of his eye. Of course, that was a tired mind playing its usual old tricks. He thought nothing of it. Still… it was easy to get spooked if you believed in that sort of stuff.

Heading around to the garage he realised Victoria hadn’t been making up the part about the rattling. The studio door was slightly ajar and from inside he could hear a clattering sound, followed by a couple of bangs, and the scrape of a moving chair. Huh. He inched towards it a little more alert. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and stood on end. Nevertheless, he continued on, comforting himself with the mental image of a finding a raccoon shacking up amongst the old furniture. 

The door creaked open beneath his hand, and he slipped inside with quiet steps. Several things happened very quickly all at once. First, the stack of fliers which had been floating across the room by themselves froze in midair, then the empty chair which was tilted back on its two hind legs slammed forward, and the box of newly bought plectrums that he had grabbed for Julie just yesterday jerked sideways where it hovered, scattering little yellow pieces across the top of the grand piano. 

Ray was in shock. Had he gone nuts?

“Dad?!”

He spun around, eyes wide, to find Julie standing in the doorway totally agape. 

“What did you guys do?!” she demanded.

“What are you–” he started to say, confused, only to realise that she wasn’t looking at him.

All at once, the floating objects went tumbling to the floor, sad and guilty-looking. Ray glanced from the fliers to Julie and back, at a total loss for words, and for one brief moment of total insanity, he wondered if the grief of losing her mom had given Julie some kind of Matilda-like magical powers.

“Dad, I can explain,” she said.

The following minutes were a blur. A lot of words were said, Julie took his keys from him and slammed the garage door shut in a panic, and Ray just stood there with his mouth parted half in confusion and half in shock as he tried to process what was gone on. Luke, Reggie, Alex… all names that he’d heard before, all followed by an explanation that was absolutely _nonsensical_. Hot dogs, poison, Sunset Curve… individually they made sense, together they were grounds for a hospital admission. 

Those plectrums had been _floating._

It wasn’t until he was seated on the couch, ushered there by his daughter, watching a pair of drumsticks rise into the air on their own only to suddenly _connect_ to the tall blonde boy he recognised from Julie’s performances that things really started to click. Alex’s appearance was followed by Reggie’s, and then quickly Luke’s, and all of a sudden Ray was watching his daughter’s band play like it was any old Tuesday where he hadn’t just had everything he’d known turned upsidedown and thrown overboard.

“The milk…” Ray repeated slowly. “Okay.”

He sighed, dropping his face into his hands and rubbing at his eyes tiredly. Had he really been working so much recently that this is what it had come to? Or was Julie telling the truth? Were there really three dead seventeen-year-olds playing rock music in his late wife’s old studio right now?

When he opened his eyes, they were still there staring at him in concern. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glanced at Julie.

“Ghosts,” he said. “ _Ghosts.”_

She nodded. “I know. I didn’t believe it at first either.”

How did you come to believe it? He wanted to ask, but something about the goosebumps raised on his arms told him that he didn’t want to know the answer. Lord, all this time he’d thought Julie was keeping secrets because she was just a normal teenager going through a tough time… well, she was in a way, but he’d never imagined it would be like _this._

_Ghosts!_

“Are they… you know,” he started. “The only ones?”

“Well there’s Willie,” Alex said helpfully. “And this guy called Caleb, but we don’t really vibe with him…”

Luke muttered something under his breath and Reggie laughed, but Ray was too busy taking in this new information to process what had been said.

“Okay. And what about…?”

“Mom?” Julie finished for him in a quiet voice. 

He looked at her, hopeful, his heart both very heavy and very light with it, but she shook her head just once and he let his shoulders sag in defeat. A small part of him, the part that wasn’t busy shouting at him that he’d lost his mind, had been hoping maybe all those one-sided conversations with Rose in the studio hadn’t been quite so one-sided after all. Longing ached inside of his chest. Had Julie gone through this same feeling when she’d found out?

“So you’re in a ghost band,” he said, finally. “A band of ghosts.”

“Yes,” Julie confirmed. “Can they stay?”

She reached over and touched his hand gently. Instinctively, he took it and squeezed. She smiled. He knew without looking at the boys that this was a battle there would be no point in fighting.

“Alright,” he sighed. “But you gotta tell me something.”

“Anything.”

“...you’re not hiding any vampires in the loft or anything, right?”


End file.
